The invention relates to apparatus and methods for coloring hair and, more particularly, to apparatus and methods in comparable in general ways but distinguished in particular other ways from the prior art way of salon-style foiling hair, one non-limiting example of which comprises the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 5,349,970—Razzouq, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Highlights have been and are popular not only historically with but nowadays as sought-after as ever by consumers such as salon customers. Highlights involve bleaching (or otherwise coloring) select strands of hair to achieve a color that is different (usually lighter, and/or disguising graying) from that of the consumer's baseline hair shade(s). This in turn provides unique effects such as a sun-kissed look on an individual with dark blonde hair, or possibly lighter brown streaks on a darker-haired individual, and so on.
In beauty salons, customers wanting highlights (or lowlights) usually have it done by a foil process. The conventional foil process is not only costly but also time-consuming. For the beautician, the foil process is laborious. Generally, the entire (foil) process extends over two to three hours. Typically many small pieces of metal (eg., aluminum) foil—folded or rolled/crumpled in slender sleeves—are distributed through the customer's hair based upon the judgment of the beautician.
Briefly, the foundation of the foil process begins with the beautician mixing the chemicals which combine to yield the coloring compound. That is, the coloring compound is a two component admixture of two chemicals, namely, the color base and then the activator. The color base is typically provided in paste, gel or thick liquid forms. The activator typically contains hydrogen peroxide. Hence, in order to color hair, the color base must be mixed with the activator.
The beautician might begin a foil process by selecting a color or colors from a pallette of the on-hand supply of color bases. If the color base is in paste form it might be dispensed from a squeeze tube as toothpaste. Alternatively, if the color chemical is more nearly a gel or liquid it might be contained in a small (plastic or glass) container from which it is poured or shaken out. Also, once a brand-new squeeze tube or container of color base is freshly cracked open, it typically has a relatively short shelf-life of a week or so if not days.
Continuing on, the beautician dispenses an amount of color base into a mixing bowl, adds another amount of the activator, and stirs the two together thoroughly. At this stage, the beautician can turn her or his attention to the customer. The beautician “weaves” the customer's scalp or, that is, separates select strands hair into numerous distinct “chunks,” or bundles, tufts &c. A rectangular patch of aluminum foil is pulled from a dispenser. The beautician gives the foil patch a folded margin just along the edge that will be disposed closest to the customer's scalp. Then the beautician creases the patch in half to form a V-shaped trough of two leafs meeting at a middle fold line. Next the beautician paints, with a modified paint brush, the admixture of color base and activator into the depth of the fold of the V-shaped trough. The beautician lays a bundle of the customer's hair strands in the foil trough, perhaps paints the hair bundle as well, and then folds closed or otherwise rolls/crumples the open leafs around the hair bundle in slender sleeves. To finish, the beautician stuffs as best she or he can a cotton barrier between the scalp and foil tube to absorb in any bleed of the color compound out the end, lest the roots of nearby hairs be bleached out (or otherwise colored) too much. Thus far, the beautician has completed the job for one bundle. The beautician repeats—over and over again—the above steps for all the numerous other selected hair bundles.
When all the foils are in place, the customer is seated on a chair with her (or his) head crowned by the hood of a hooded-hair dryer. After an appropriate period of time, the customer is retrieved from the chair dryer, the foils are removed and the hair is rinsed well in order to flush out the last remnants of the color compound.
Needless to say, the beautician's placement of the foil wraps is a time consuming, labor intensive task that also requires judgment and skill, and when that is considered along with the time required for the actual bleaching (or otherwise coloring) operation, the entire supervision over the process becomes quite lengthy and difficult.
There are other ways of highlighting one's hair. Many economical do-it-yourself (or home-style) kits are sold retail for consumers to highlight their own hair in the privacy of their own home and by processes which involve only a fraction of the fuss as the foregoing salon-style foil process. Nevertheless, the demand for the salon-style foil process persists because, simply, it obtains the best results. And when it comes to one's own hair, factors such as image and confidence tend to push consumers toward accepting the cost and time drawbacks of the salon-style foil process in order to minimize the risk of inconsistent home-style results as well as maximize the outcome gotten best by skilled beautician professionals. This remains true to date even though, in prestige beauty salons, the salon-style foil process can cost several hundred dollars or more.
What is needed are improvements over the shortcomings of the prior art, ones which among other things speed up the salon-style foil process for the sake of the beauticians, so that more of their skill and energy is spent on selecting colors from the available pallette and weaving the customer's hair mass into the selected bundles and less on the mundane tasks of folding and painting foil patches as well as applying the cotton bleed-barriers.
A number of additional features and objects will be apparent in connection with the following discussion of preferred embodiments and examples.